Judges 3:5

_AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL DWELT AMONG THE CANAANITES, HITTITES, AND AMORITES, AND PERIZZITES, AND HIVITES, AND JEBUSITES:_ The children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites. The two classes by degrees came to be in habits of contact: reciprocal alliances were formed by marriage, until the Israelites, relaxing the austerity of their principles, showed a growing conformity to the manners and worship of their idolatrous neighbours....

1-7 As the Israelites were a type of the church on earth, they were not to be idle and slothful. The Lord was pleased to try them by the remains of the devoted nations they spared. Temptations and trials detect the wickedness of the hearts of sinners; and strengthen he graces of believers in their daily conflict with Satan, sin, and this evil world. They must live in this world, but they are not of it, and are forbidden to conform to it. This marks the difference between the followers of Christ and mere professors. The friendship of the world is more fatal than its enmity; the latter can only kill the body, but the former murders many precious souls....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 3:1 NOW THESE ARE THE NATIONS, etc. We are now told in detail what was stated in general in Judges 2:22, Judges 2:23, after the common method of Hebrew narrative. TO PROVE ISRAEL. This word _to prove _is_ _used here in a somewhat different sense from that which it bears in Judges 2:4 and in Judges 2:22. In those passages it is used of their moral probation, of proving or testing their faith and obedience; but here it is rather in the sense of "to exercise" or "to accustom them

AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL DWELT AMONG THE CANAANITES,.... As if they had been only sojourners with them, and not conquerors of them; and dwelt by sufferance, and not as proprietors and owners; such were their sloth and indolence, and such the advantage the inhabitants of the land got over them through it, and through their compliances with them; and this was the case not only of one sort of them, the Canaanites, but of the rest: THE HITTITES, AND AMORITES, AND PERIZZITES, AND HIVITES, AND JEBUSITES; who all had cities in the several parts of the land, with whom the children of Israel were mixed, and with whom they were permitted to dwell....

II. THE DECLENSIONS, PUNISHMENTS AND DELIVERANCES 1. The Sin of Idolatry and Othniel CHAPTER 3:5-11 _ 1. The first declension (Judges 3:5)_ 2. Sold to the king of Mesopotamia (Judges 3:8) 3. The deliverance through Othniel (Judges 3:9) The first declension, bondage and deliverance is briefly related. We see how Israel went from bad to worse. First, the wicked nations they were to exterminate dwelt amongst them. Then the children of Israel established some relationship with them and dwelt amongst these nations. First, the children of Israel permitted them to exist in their midst; then the doomed nations gained the power over Israel and the people of God became dependent on them. The third step dow

JUDGES 2:6 TO JUDGES 3:6. THE DEUTERONOMIST'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF JUDGES PROPER (Judges 3:5 to Judges 16:31). In the view of this interpreter of sacred history, the whole era of the Judges falls into longer or shorter times of national prosperity, in which Yahweh protects and blesses His faithful people, alternating with times of national calamity, in which He withdraws His favour and blessing from apostates. On the beneficent strength of the Judge the pillars of state rest secure for a whole generation, and his decease is like the removal of the key-stone of an arch. The writer's general principle his philosophy of history is based on sound prophetic

DWELT AMONG. Not the Canaanites dwelling in Israel, but Israel dwelling among the Canaanites, who were to be exterminated. Exodus 3:8; Exodus 3:17; Exodus 23:23; Deuteronomy 7:1....

In contrast to Judges 3:3 the nations here represent the _entire_population of W. Palestine. Such is the significance of this conventional list of the six (Exodus 3:8 + 8 times) or the seven (with the Girgashites, +Deuteronomy 7:12 times) races of Canaan, in JE and the Deut. writers. The connexion of Judges 3:5 with the foregoing may be this: the nations were left to test Israel (Judges 2:20-22; Judges 3:1); but Israel, once settled among them ...

AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL DWELT AMONG THE CANAANITES, &C.— We learn from these verses, that the children of Israel offended in three particulars: _First,_ In suffering to remain among them that people whom they ought to have destroyed. _Secondly,_ In contracting alliances with them, contrary to the express prohibition of the Lord, Deuteronomy 7:3; Deuteronomy 7:26. And _thirdly,_ In worshipping their idols. The words _Baalim, and the groves,_ undoubtedly mean the same, as _Baal_ and _Astaroth,_ in the 13th verse of the former chapter. We have frequently had occasion to remark, that the ancient idolaters worshipped their Baalim in groves: but it seems very probable, that the word rendered _groves_ should be differently rendered; for the _groves_ were not

_Nations Left to Test Israel Judges 3:1-6_ Now these are the nations which the Lord left, to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan; 2 Only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at the least such as before knew nothing thereof; 3 Namely, five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites that dwelt in mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-hermon unto the entering in of Hamath. 4 And they were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. 5 And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites: 6 And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and se